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6:00 pm July 11, 2012 – Myself and #1 assistant Kevin arrive at the intersection of Cervantes and Fillmore Street. Just minutes later a women in running gear walked up. I greeted her, ask if she was here to run with the bus and before she could say “yes,” a spandex clad herd emerged. Within minutes there were 80 some people standing at the intersection. Holy cow!

As I attempted to meet and greet the racers, Kevin and Sally of Athleta managed the paperwork. Looking around I was stunned by the massive group, were they wondering WTF was going on and when could they start running…?

Driver of our victim

6:20 I asked Jenn Pattee of Basic Training to wander across the street to where the busses deploy. Her mission, to find and make friends with our impending victim. It took a couple of trips but eventually Jenn managed to ascertain, befriend and photograph the man who would drive our target. A job well done.

6:28 pm, shockingly on time, the janky bus started sputtering toward the start. I went into hyper drive attempting to run through the rules of the race. Just as I spit out my last word the bus pulled up at the bus stop, aka: starting line.

My last words were…“When the light turns green GO!”

The second the light turned green 80 some pair of legs were off and running as the bus sputtered off down the road behind them. At the Chestnut Street bus stop, the bus was forced to stop and pick up passengers. This allowed the runners to break away, make their way across Lombard and eventually up the hill. At this point the bus had been dropped by the entire field or runners.

It wasn’t until the second block of 15% grade on Steiner Street that the bus managed to close the gap and catch the back of the field. By this time many of the racers were just blocks away from crossing the finishing line at Sacramento. As the bus turned to make it’s way up the final climb on Broadway I did my best to block for the remaining field. My trusty SEVEN (bike) and I made every effort to detain the bus by slowly grinding up the climb in front of the coach. That’s when the bus softly tooted its horn, put the hammer down, attacked and sped past me on my left. As I crested the top of the climb and passed the bus at the stop on the corner, I head the driver yell out his window, “nice try!”

Making my way down Fillmore toward the finishing line I noticed shop owners and bystanders cheering the runners on. It was amazing to see the racers sprinting toward the finish line while dodging pedestrian traffic to the cheers of strangers on the busy shopping street.

By the time I reached the finish line most of the runners had come through and were enthusiastically cheering on their fellow racers. There were folks of all shapes and sizes, women, men, dogs, strollers, young and forever young. Everyone had smiles on their faces. It was thrilling.

While not every person managed to beat the bus the majority of the field did. And frankly, it seemed to me as though the bus was moving a little faster than usual. Do you suppose the driver took our challenge to heart? Or maybe Muni learned of my advice to start working on it’s climbing. We’ll never really know…

Party time!

Post race, we were off to the Athleta store for snacks, congratulations and awards. A good time was had by all and the excitement was flabbergasting.

Special thanks to Athleta on Fillmore for their bountiful sponsorship, of prizes, snacks, cheerleaders, promotion and general excitement for the cause! Thanks to Hint water for keeping the racers hydrated, to Lisa and Sports Basement for their prize contributions. To Jenn Pattee and her Basic Training crew, thank you for helping to make this the best Run with the Bus ever! To Kevin and all my friends who came out to support.

Lastly… THANK YOU to everyone who showed up, raced and had a good time. That includes The Bus! This event would not have been possible without every last one of you! Stay tuned… this is just the beginning…

It’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game, right? Well, we don’t always feel that way but it’s true. When I was racing bikes I heard one of my teammates husbands say to her as we were leaving for a race, “don’t come home if you don’t win.” He’s now her ex husband, I believe.

In bike racing an award is given to the last rider to finish the race, it’s called The Lanterne Rouge. The idea behind the Lanterne Rouge is to celebrate finishing the race rather than giving up. Riders often compete to come in last rather than just near the back as the rider that comes in last is remembered, while those who finish a few places ahead are forgotten.

The term Lanterne Rouge translates to Red Lantern and is derived from the red lantern that was placed on the caboose of a railway train. The engineer would look at the light from the engine to make sure that no cars had come uncoupled.

In life, as in athletics hanging on is not easy when things get ugly. It’s much easier to give up, but where’s the challenge and sense of pride in that? Finishing what you’ve started and giving it your best effort is a major achievement and worthy of praise.

In my life I have taken first place, I have taken The Red Lantern and I have given up. I’m very proud of my wins and my last place finish, but I hugely regret the times I gave up, and the things I have not been brave enough to attempt.

Lets remember to celebrate the effort, as well as the outcome. As one of the Race With The Bus participants said to me as he was walking away, “we’re all winners.”

A week ago Sunday, my scope said that last week was “going to be all about karma.” I got a little nervous, as I’m not always a good girl. Then I thought about it and thought… yea, I’ve earned some good karma! I’ve done some nice things for people in the not so distant past, so… YES… this should be a good karma kinda week (I figured, think positive).

Anyway, as the week rolled on I kinda forgot about my scope, and then magically good things really did start to happen. It was kind of freaky!

I won’t bore you with the details, but basically the one thing that I wanted to happen was for my Run With The Bus race to turn out well, for it to get Motion Starved some attention and to meet some nice people. All of which came true.

If you read Fridays post you know how the Bus race turned out, if you didn’t, read it now. What you don’t know, is while literally begging for help to promote the race, I got the attention of the folks at Scoutmob.com, how it happened I have no idea.

If you don’t know Scoutmob, they were born from a love for the locally owned businesses that make our city unique, and the hard-working people who make it all happen. They wanted a chance to work with and promote folks like me, but also a way to tell our stories. Scoutmob is a way to get curious urban explorers like you, out and about and exploring the city… all with the incentive of free mobile deals.

The way the deals work is very simple, if you see something you like, you claim it and then you use it. Like old-school cutting a coupon out of the paper and then redeeming it. You don’t pay Scoutmob anything. Plus, their site is super cool and they work hard to bring you new, fun and interesting things, not just any ol’ thing. That’s where I come in…

It was crazy karmic, I got an email from a nice Scoutmob lady telling me that she liked what I’m doing and since Scoutmob likes to promote people and places that they find curious, they wanted to help get the word out about my style of workouts. With that, they’ve given me a little space in their daily email that goes out to many more thousands of San Franciscans that I could ever hope to reach at this point. The little ad links directly here, to Motion Starved, Scoutmob gets nothing out of this deal other than the satisfaction of getting me some attention and helping their fans find something new and interesting.

The moral of the story, maybe there is something to karma or maybe it’s that hard work gets rewarded, or maybe it’s, do weird things people will notice you. Who knows…Bottom line is, come workout with me. Tell me you’ve been Mob’d I’ll give you 3 classes for 30 bucks.

Kisses…

P.s. Check out Scoutmob.com they’re all over the country. Not just SF.

6:10 pm Wednesday, July 20th 2011. I arrived at the corner of Fillmore and Bay to find a group of 5 or 6 people stretching their legs. Yikes…I thought…it’s starting!

As I chitchatted with the first-comers, and suggested they warm up their legs, others showed up. Every time I turned around there were more people. My head was spinning as I tried to go over the “rules,” route and basic game plan. In my mind there was a lot to do. The initial plan was to get everyone to participate in a warm up sequence but alas all we did was swing our arms around.

As we warmed up (swung our arms around) I sent Mo over to make friends with the bus driver. Armed with a goodwill offering of a box of cherries (why cherries? Because they’re healthy and were on sale) Mo bravely went over to politely let our victim know what was about to transpire. I figured if he knew what we were up to, he might make an effort to travel at a respectable pace and play along.

After the cherries were delivered it took the bus about 10 minutes before it slugged over to the starting line at the corner of Bay and Fillmore. According to the official MUNI schedule the bus was scheduled to depart that out location at 6:32, it was 6:40 when it pulled up to the line (no surprise there). As the bus arrived it lined up at the light, loaded a few passengers and when the light turned green, bus and runners were off.

The pace down Fillmore to Chestnut was reasonable; the runners kept perfect stride with the bus all the way to the light at Chestnut. At the light everyone including the bus (obviously) stopped. When the light turned Green the runners went, immediately leaving the bus behind. That was the last any of us saw of the bus until the finish line, 1.5 miles up the road. Not only did the runners drop the bus they were racing in the first block, they caught up to, and passed the coach that had taken off some 5 plus minutes previous to the one we were racing.

It was amazing watching everyone run up the hill! 4 blocks of hard climbing! Every single person (and lady Jane, our K9 Mascot) dug incredibly deep, they even beat me to the top and I was on a bike! Geez!

In the end everyone seemed to have a great time, thanks to generous donations we had some fine top finisher prizes as well as a couple honorable mentions, all going to very impressive competitors.

Special thanks go to Brock at The SFist for helping me get the word out, Team P for their photos, support and bell ringing. I’d like to thank racer Ross for documenting the event and sharing his video and photos, to Mo for being Mo and to my two other fav Ab’s (that’s code) you made this event happen!

Finally, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who came and raced, brought their friends and had a good chuckle. This is the way life should be, a little nutty, a little challenging, and a little hot and sweaty!

Until next time…

P.s. Thank you for playing Mr. Bus! See you again next month. You might want to work on your hill climbing between now and then… Just sayin’

P.s.s. Wanna see more pix and a video of this event? Check out our Facebook page!

Yippee! The very first Motion Starved Run With The Bus competition is here. In case you haven’t been following, we’re racing the 22 Fillmore Muni line from The Marina to Geary Street, here in San Francisco. The course is only 1.5 miles but includes a half-mile of climbing at about a 15% grade. “Ouch” is the word that best describes the climbing in this event.

At approximately 6:30 this evening runners will take on the janky electric bus. There will be spectators along the route as well as supporters on bikes to cheer us on. We have top finisher prizes and my pal Earl has built us a winners podium to insure top-notch photo ops. This is a pro operation folks, no messing around here!

With that, I’d like to take this opportunity to share a few hill running tips:

First of all, think “soft eyes, soft mouth, soft shoulders” when running/riding/doing yoga etc… A tense face/body is not an efficient use of valuable energy. Relax!

As you run, hold your arms so that your thumbs brush by, or just below your hip bones with each step. Most folks hold their arms too high.

On a hill shorten your stride and pick up your knees pushing off with each step. Think, “push, push, push.”

Running uphill, lean into the angel of the hill. Thrust your elbows back hard as you run. Run with power and conquer!

Never, ever, look up the hill. Look straight in front of you about 50 feet. When you look up and see where you’re headed you panic. Don’t do that!

Breath! Holding your breath is dumb for all sorts of reasons that I’ll go into another day. Just remember to keep breathing.

Lastly, make friends with the hill. Most folks hate hills and panic when they see one. If you decide that the hill is your friend then you’ll have an easier time going up than the folks that are busy freaking out about it. Get me?

With that, we’re off. Good luck to all those participating in our Run With The Bus race tonight. I bid you a safe and speedy pursuit.

Thank you for participating in our Run With The Bus workout. We at Motion Starved very much appreciate your support and are looking forward to a hella great time. On that note, it’s important to mention that this is an event designed show folks that exercise can be lots of fun and to bring out the kid in us. It’s an excuse to run up a hill and act a little nutty, in no way is it meant to be a comment on Muni service. In fact we hope that Muni will take this challenge in stride and play along with us. As noted there will be prizes for the first few to reach the top of the hill as well as finisher prizes (even if the bus gets there first). I should also mention that just like the bus, all “racers” are expected to obey the rules of the road (stop and wait at the light!) and exhibit acceptable sidewalk etiquette (no knocking into people please).

As noted there should be a 22 Fillmore arriving at Bay and Fillmore at about 6:30. When the bus leaves the location we’re off and running. Since the course is only about 1.5 miles and goes up hill pretty fast I suggest you warm up before the start. I will be leading a short warm up workout starting at 6:20 please attend if you’re able.

Lastly, don’t forget you’ll need to get home after the race. Unfortunately Motion Starved is not able to provide transportation back to the start so you’ll need to bring bus fare or run/walk back. Better yet, hang out on Fillmore with fellow racers and enjoy a little recovery snackage.

Thanks for playing! See you on Wednesday!

Kelley

P.s. For the original Run With The Bus posting, visit the “Schedule” page.